breaking into being real

A few excerpts from Ann Voskamp's book, "The Broken Way," a chapter called, "Breaking into Being Real."  So much truth here.

"There is no fear in letting tears come.  Sadness is a gift to avoid the nothingness of numbness, and all the hard places need water.  Grief is a gift, and after a rain of tears, there is always more of you than before.  Rain always brings growth.

I am sad for what is.  I am even more sad for what isn't going to be now... I'd do anything to get back there and do it all over again.  If only...

The saddest string of words that's ever been strung together: "If only...". I can taste the words in my mouth.  Who doesn't know "if only..."?

But there's no way back.  Maybe life always tastes a bit like regret.  Whatever you do or don't do, there is no way to never taste it.  And though you may have to taste regret, you don't have to believe in it, you don't have to live in it, like rowing a boat that only goes backward, trying to find something that's been washed out to sea.  It's God's sea.  And that means all is grace.

You can feel too broken to be.

There can be a lying snake curled between your neural membranes and his lies can run poison in your veins.  Sometimes our deepest suffering is that voice in our head.

What if the deeper you know your own brokenness, the deeper you can experience your own belovedness?  Not one of us is ever too broken.  

You must let your false self be broken, parts of you that you only thought were necessary.  You must embrace your union with Christ, bravely surrender and trust that what's breaking and being lost is never the eternal, needed parts of you, but always the temporal, needless parts that were getting in the way of you becoming real.

The miracle of becoming real happens when you let all your suffering create love.  When you let the pain make passion.  The passion makes you real.

You are bravest when you speak your unbraveness.  You are safest when you are the realest.  When you are the realest about your brokenness - that is when you can know you're most beloved.  

You are not most loved when you're pretending to have it all together; you are actually the most loved when you feel broken and falling apart.

There is a cross that makes us all safe.  Jesus is drawn to the broken parts of us we would never want to draw attention to.  Jesus is most attracted to the busted and sees the broken as the most beautiful.  And our God wants the most unwanted parts of us most. "Heart-shattered lives ready to live don't for a moment escape God's notice... The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit." (Psalm 51:17). Nothing pleases God more than letting Him touch the places you don't think please Him.  God is drawn to broken things - so He can draw the most beautiful things.  

"Don't run from suffering; embrace it," Jesus beckons. "Follow me and I'll show you how." (Mark 8:34).

We are all doing it.  Picking up our crosses continuously.  Making Christ present against the lies, right in the midst of brokenness... Believe there is powerfulness in your brokenness.  Carrying your cross is about carrying your pain in such a way that it makes it into love.

You didn't know how to go on - but you didn't grow hard in the midst of it.  

Sometimes it isn't your fault.  Life breaks us.  The fall breaks us.  The brokenness inside of us breaks us.  Your heart's beautiful - especially the broken edges where you let the love get in.